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Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

Book

American treasures : the secret efforts to save the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address

Call Number

  • 973 P981 (OSH)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2016.

Physical Description

xv, 415 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Summary

"On December 26, 1941, Secret Service Agent Harry E. Neal stood on a platform at Washington's Union Station, watching a train chug off into the dark and feeling at once relieved and inexorably anxious. These were dire times: as Hitler's armies plowed across Europe, seizing or destroying the Continent's historic artifacts at will, Japan bristled to the East. The Axis was rapidly closing in. So FDR set about hiding the country's valuables. On the train speeding away from Neal sat four plain-wrapped cases containing the documentary history of American democracy: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and more, guarded by a battery of agents and bound for safekeeping in the nation's most impenetrable hiding place. American Treasures charts the little-known journeys of these American crown jewels. From the risky and audacious adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to our modern Fourth of July celebrations, American Treasures shows how the ideas captured in these documents underscore the nation's strengths and hopes, and embody its fundamental values of liberty and equality. Stephen Puleo weaves in exciting stories of freedom under fire--from the Declaration and Constitution smuggled out of Washington days before the British burned the capital in 1814, to their covert relocation during WWII--crafting a sweeping history of a nation united to preserve its definition of democracy"--

Contents

  • Prologue
  • Early 1941. "It is natural that men should value the original documents"
  • 1776. "We hold these truths..." ; "The unanimous Declaration"
  • 1941. "The preservation of national morale"
  • 1787-1791. "Suspended upon a single hair" ; "Our doors will be shut" ; "That a national government ought to be established" ; "We are now at a full stop" ; "The people are the King" ; "Approaching so near to perfection..." ; "Tis done!... We have become a nation"
  • 1941. "A place of greater safety"
  • 1814. "Take the best care of the books and papers..." ; "Such destruction--such confusion"
  • 1942. "The Library of Congress goes to war"
  • 1826-1860. "I had flattered myself that he would survive the summer" ; "No government upon the earth is so safe as ours"
  • 1942-1943. "Are you satisfied we have taken all reasonable precautions?" ; "He loved peace and he loved liberty"
  • 1860-1924. "Four score and seven years ago..." ; "Of the people, by the people, for the people..." ; "The instrument has suffered very seriously" ; "Touch any aspect of the address, and you touch a mystery"
  • 1944. "Nothing that men have ever made surpasses them"
  • 1952. "They are not important as manuscripts, they are important as THEMSELVES" ; "The National Archives will not forget" ; "Symbols of power that can move the world"
  • Epilogue.

Subjects